Mali is a country in West Africa with around 20 million inhabitants. The economy is mainly based on agriculture, livestock farming and the gold trade. As a result, it is one of the world's weakest economies by Western standards of modernisation and industrialisation. In 2021, it ranked 186th out of 191 countries in the HDI. Since French colonial rule, the country has been a theatre of power for different powers, which still results in asymmetrical power relations today. Since 2012, Mali has been embroiled in a multifaceted crisis and has long been threatened by terrorism.
Following the coups d'état in 2020 and 2021, Mali was suspended from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. This situation has contributed to the aggravation and exacerbation of multiple security, institutional, socio-economic and economic crises. In May 2022, Mali announced its withdrawal from the G5 Sahel, of which it was a founding member. Violence perpetrated by terrorists, Islamist extremist groups and ethnic fragmentation – particularly in the northern regions – has affected many areas of Mali, regularly threatening the security of the population.
The institutional and security crisis affects 7.2 million people in Mali, including around 50% of women, 19% of children under the age of five and 3.5% of people aged 60 and over. As part of the drive to establish a Mali Kura (New Mali), the Malian Defence and Security Forces (FDS) are in the front line in establishing peace and security. In 2022, then in 2023, the definitive withdrawals of the French army (operation BARKHANE) and MINUSMA have been requested by the Malian state. In accordance with their regalian missions as the Malian army, the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) have surpassed themselves to make Mali Kura a reality that some thought unimaginable given the state of decay in which the country found itself.
On the economical level, the “Note sur la situation économique du Mali 2023" reveals that periods of drought are seriously affecting the livestock and agricultural sector, one of Mali's main economic sectors. Livestock farming accounts for 40% of primary sector GDP and around 15% of national GDP, supporting 85% of farmers and generating income for around 30% of the population (around six million people). In addition, Mali has the second-largest livestock population among ECOWAS countries, after Nigeria, with 60.1 million cattle in 2019. According to the same "Note on the economic situation" study, Mali has suffered more than 40 major climatic shocks between 1970 and 2020. Droughts, for example, are estimated to have affected around 400,000 people a year and reduced crop-dependent farm incomes by $9.5 million a year. Locust infestations in 1985-1988 and 2003-2005 destroyed millions of hectares of arable land, but the impact on the population has not been measured.
As far as women's and children's rights are concerned, Mali has officially signed up to several international conventions. However, in reality, these fundamental rights are still poorly transposed into national laws. Many of the existing laws are still poorly enforced. Violence against women is widespread and decision-making power in most areas of life is held by men. For example, the Family Code defines the man as "head of the family", and although sexualized and gender-based violence within the couple is certainly an offence, domestic violence is not explicitly prohibited by law. Compared to other countries in the sub-region, Mali does not yet have laws prohibiting gender-based violence, such as excision or child marriage. 75% of women and men consider excision to be normal, while only 18% of women and 13% of men believe that the practice should not continue.
Decades of political dislocation, neo-colonial power structures and a precarious security situation have resulted in high levels of poverty in Mali. The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate change have fuelled poverty, leading to a re-traditionalisation of gender roles unequally distributed in society. Reinforced patriarchal structures continue to undermine women's rights, putting Malian women at a disadvantage compared to men. The government is not sufficiently committed to the protection of women, which is reflected in a lack of appropriate laws or in the failure to comply with laws passed to protect women and other discrete gender roles, such as the family code allowing girls to marry at 16 and boys at 18.
Women's access to education is limited. Some girls are no longer sent to school because they have been married off or because they are exposed to sexualized and gender-based violence on long school journeys. Many forms of gender-based violence, including domestic and sexualized violence, are socially tolerated in Mali. In the northern region of Mali, violence has also been cemented by rebels and extremists. Internally displaced persons often reproduce the violence suffered by rebels and extremists after they have fled. As a result, cases of violence have increased massively throughout the country.
Nevertheless, the majority of Malian civil society organisations working to ensure that women's rights are respected by the state have made some efforts. Since 2020, a lawsuit has been underway against the Malian government for early marriage, authorised under the family code, and female genital mutilation, which violates the right to physical integrity of women and girls. The case was brought before the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights (African Court) at the request of two non-governmental human rights organisations, the Association pour le progrès et la défense des droits des femmes maliennes (APDF) and the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), accompanied by the Association Malienne pour le Suivi et l'Orientation des Pratiques Traditionnelles (AMSOPT). They condemn Mali for violating its international obligations relating primarily to the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and the protection and defence of children's welfare.
